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Thursday July 23rd, 2009

Comic Con Day 1: This will forever be the day Twilight attacked and ruined a lot of things for a lot of people.  I was hoping to go see the Disney 3D panel for Alice in Wonderland and Tron as well as the panel after it for a 3D preview of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Hole, and Final Destination.  Twilight was after that, which I wanted nothing to do with.  While I was waiting in line for my badge, my friends informed me that the Twilighters had taken over Hall H, and there’s no way any of us were going to get in until after that panel was over.  So the consolation prize was to see a preview of Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy.

I never know what to expect when an old (very old in the case of Astro Boy) comic, manga to be precise,  is being redone as a CG spectacle, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  The movie looks awesome!  They have an excellent cast of voice actors, including Freddy Highmore as Astro Boy, Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage, Nathan Lane, Samuel L. Jackson, and many more.  The makers seemed to take great care in preserving the essence of the story while modernizing some elements, as it was created nearly 60 years ago.

Afterward, I decided I’d head to the Exhibit Hall and see about getting myself a Resident Evil shirt.  I show up at the Capcom booth and I discover that instead of waiting in an interminable line, they do daily signups, and the signups are full for the day.  Drat.  I wander over to the Paramount booth where they are rotating give-aways hourly, and you just have to get in line.  Considering they were giving out USB Star Trek badges, Tribbles, Transformers mp3 speakers and other things, it seemed like a good line to wait in.  I meet up with my friends, and we wait, and wait.  Finally, we get to obtain our Star Trek badges, then it’s to the back of the line to wait some more for the next thing.  If you haven’t guessed by now, waiting is a recurring theme in your time at Con, you just have to make sure you’re waiting for something you want.  After getting a Tribble, I decide I wanted to try and duck into the Burn Notice panel, see Bruce Campbell, then head over to Bill Plympton, a very cool and very odd independent animator.

I arrive near where the Burn Notice panel is and discover that the line is closed, and I can’t even wait in line anymore.  So much for Bruce Campbell, but off to Bill Plympton.  There was a line, but it wasn’t long at all, so I waited, and I was rewarded with some awesome animation shorts, a coupon for a discounted t-shirt, and an autographed sketch if I swing by the booth sometime and say hi.

After the panel, the plan was to see the Science Behind Science Fiction panel, and possibly the Legend of the Seeker panel if I made inside in time.  We did indeed get in, and we were treated to a sneak peek at the 2nd season, which was cool, but due to the filming schedule, only a small portion of the cast was there.  The series is based off of The Sword of Truth novels from Terry Goodkind, and if you’re a fan of fantasy shows, I recommend checking it out.

Then the panel I was waiting for, the ever geeky Science Behind Science Fiction panel.  Basically, the science advisers for Eureka, Battlestar Galactica/Caprica, etc. discuss how real science shapes some of the things we see in the shows.  It’s a panel that always makes my inner former science major happy.

My friend was working the Drawn Together panel, so we waited and watched that.  I was never too big of a fan of the show, but some of the inappropriate stuff they did on stage, that I don’t think I should repeat, were really funny. After the panel, we were beat and decided to head home for the night.

I rate this day a 4.5 out of 5

-Zack loathes the Twilighters.